The witches at Salem were hanged for the most part. Some were crushed under rocks. Burning a human to death is tricky, messy and time-consuming. Witches were not hung on crosses as far as I've ever seen in the histories.

The women persecuted as witches in Europe were not closet pagans. They were women no one liked, or old women who had outlived their usefulness and were a burden on the community. Crazy old ladies and superstition, bitterness and neighbor feuds, made witchcraft an easy finger to point. Life was too hard and just keeping the family warm, fed and clothed took all the time a woman had; few poor women had the inclination to expend time on witchcraft. Only ladies of leisure and learning had time for hobbies like potion making and dancing nude in the forest. Like a modern book club. In fact, I've always wanted to do deep research on literacy rates and wichcraft/paganism as an intellectual choice of rebellion.

You cannot get high from moldy bread, but certain moldy grains, perhaps. The few "witches" who actually cobbled up potions used fun stuff like henbane and belladonna. The "flying" potions were applied under the arms where the psychoactive ingredients were readily absorbed. And everyone knew which mushrooms were the right ones, there were few accidental shroom trips.

I knew that about the rye and the ergot, but hadn't realized it could survive baking. So you cannot get high from moldy wheat bread unless the baker and miller are unscrupulous and mix in contaminated rye flour. Interesting, thank you.

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AntiM wrote:The witches at Salem were hanged for the most part. Some were crushed under rocks. Burning a human to death is tricky, messy and time-consuming. Witches were not hung on crosses as far as I've ever seen in the histories.

Most cross stories are apocryphal.

I believe the notion of using crosses for crucifixion is myth. In fact, the "cross" really has no implicit meaning in Christianity - there's nothing in original scripture about a cross at all. Not once in the bible is a "cross" mentioned (except where it is mis-translated from the original greek). In reality, the Romans used what is called a "stau-ross" or "stav ross", an "upright pale or stake" - it never had any cross members on it. In fact, you cannot find any imagery of crosses associated with christianity until several hundred years later. The first known painting of what people call a crucifix didn't appear until the 7th century. Christians likely invented the cross image from the Greek letter X (chi) with the P (rho) through it which was a monogram for the Christ character.

Hmmm I don't ever recall the arms of the man being stretched out as if on a cross. They are raised above his head or down at his side. I definitely do not see any similarities between Pagan witches and Burning Man. Also I don't believe witches were burned on crosses either. I think this is fucking absurd.